Ecosystem Overhaul

My territory being thirteen to twenty-six times larger than a normal one essentially meant that managing it was a goddamn nightmare.

I had no subordinates. Sure, I had my clones, but one was off doing consulting work, three had been sent to the cartel members, and another was roaming the community, scouting for the next prey while simultaneously handling ‘public relations’ for our Meteor Cartel.

On top of that, I had to put my old doujinshi-era design skills to full use and keep sprucing up our group bulletin board and meeting spaces.

Even though I had the main body plus twelve clones, manpower was still painfully short. So I decided to learn a few tricks from Mihun’s playbook.

“Clone Creation.”

Unlike the Deity-World Oneness clones that perfectly shared my ego, these were nothing more than programmed constructs. Their performance varied depending on how much divinity I invested.

But divinity was the one thing I had in ridiculous abundance. I mass-produced these clones, scattered them across every corner of my world, and put them to work managing my territory—which was as vast as the combined area of the Three Southern Provinces.

However, before I could even begin properly managing the ecosystem, several unexpected problems reared their heads.

First. The ‘sun’ only passed over certain regions, causing sunlight levels to plummet dramatically.

“What the hell? Why is it like this?”

“It’s simple. The ‘land’ is enormous, but the ‘sky’ isn’t proportionally large.”

“Huh?”

“You didn’t choose the Great Firmament, remember? While World Shaping did expand the sky somewhat, the ‘climate’ elements belonging to the Great Firmament have become critically insufficient.”

When I checked, rainfall was barely a drizzle, winds were weak, and there were almost no clouds.

Mountains, plains, and wetlands were all slowly drying up. Real desertification was spreading across the entire world.

The jelly-type creatures that originally lived in deserts seemed to be doing fine, but even they were panting heavily now that sunlight had decreased.

“This is a problem I really didn’t anticipate.”

“What will you do?”

“Hmm… Let’s put the full potential of World Shaping to proper use.”

You can’t talk about ecology without talking about climate. I already had plenty of knowledge, but expert-level information would be better if possible.

I had been buying up biological knowledge shared by other players whenever I had leftover points. This time, even though it cost quite a lot, I purchased additional knowledge on climate, geography, and consulting materials for agriculture, animal husbandry, forestry, and fisheries to fill in my gaps.

I left the actual studying to a dedicated clone. Since I never particularly hated studying, this arrangement was perfect.

With that knowledge, I dramatically increased the utility ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of World ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Shaping and began reshaping the world. It was simple. The term literally meant ‘reshaping heaven and earth.’ I could change not just the land, but the sky as well.

I adjusted sunlight distribution so certain areas received far more, controlled precipitation levels, modified terrain to support proper climates, and created ‘islands’ to allow diverse vegetation to flourish.

In ecological terms, an island isn’t just land surrounded by water—it refers to any terrain isolated by a specific environment that creatures cannot cross. In other words, to fish living in a lake, that lake is an ‘island.’ There’s no way to reach the neighboring lake.

Any geographically isolated terrain counts as an island. A forest can be an island. Even a single tree can be an island. To a parasite, a specific host species is an island. To creatures like pubic lice, human pubic hair and scalp hair are geographically isolated ‘islands.’

And on islands, new species are born. Island resources and environments are limited, and the number of inhabiting species is small. As a result, new species emerge one after another as they adapt to those restricted conditions.

I accelerated that process. I had no desire to unify my entire ecosystem into a single terrain type or create some grotesque landscape where every biome was crammed into one place.

Truthfully, I had originally planned to do exactly that because it would be easier to manage… but Wahando gave me some advice.

“If every zone has similar terrain, map-making becomes way too easy. Are you planning to let soldiers charge in a straight line all the way to the Nectar Well? It’s better to deliberately twist the terrain so they’re forced to keep discovering new places.”

It made sense, so I deliberately kept the god fragments separated instead of fusing them, created countless islands with subtly different inhabiting species.

These specialized creatures would evolve into new species, constantly competing with incoming organisms and developing even more vicious survival strategies.

Of course, if I made a big mistake, something like a dodo might appear—losing all aggression because it had no natural predators. I just had to prevent that.

Every single part of my ecosystem needed to be equipped with tens of thousands of ways to tear invaders to shreds. Whether through poison, swarm tactics, sheer size, horns, jaws, teeth, tentacles—anything at all.

Accelerating time made the process surprisingly convenient. I kept the perceived time at a reasonably fast pace. As a result, the biodiversity and complexity of my ecosystem became unbelievably rich for a territory only as large as the Three Southern Provinces combined.

The messed-up climate was solved by concentrating weather patterns in specific regions and creating ‘islands’ with distinct ecosystems. That took care of the first problem.

The second problem was that Nectar production wasn’t increasing.

Of course, the Nectar Well didn’t grow in ‘production capacity’ or size when it leveled up, so even with World Shaping, its area didn’t suddenly double.

But rather than simply not filling up, the lake’s volume actually seemed to be slowly decreasing. I couldn’t help but notice the anomaly.

Since this didn’t seem like a purely biological issue, I went to Sesaisa for advice. He answered simply.

“It’s simple! You’ve simply used up all the resources needed to create Nectar.”

“Used them all up…?”

“Isn’t it obvious? Your world is enormously vast and entirely material-based. The size of this no-man’s-land that doesn’t even generate much flow is excessively large. Just look at the scale of that Syrup River and Creamland. Once Creamland covered a quarter of the world, it began sucking up every last flow within the world. There’s simply no way left to produce more magic power.”

“But my Dessert Legion keeps converting life energy back into magic power.”

“Even taking that into account, you’ve used it all up. If all your jellies died, the magic circulation would stop. The Nectar Well would grind even Creamland into Nectar, the other creatures would devour every drop, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and the well would dry up completely, leading to total ecosystem collapse.”

“!”

In short, my ecosystem had reached a state of perfect equilibrium. An unexpected problem. There were plenty of biological resources, but the lack of magic was going to ruin everything?

Mihun also glanced at my ecosystem and gave similar advice.

“Look at your living creatures for a moment. Can’t you see how weakened they’ve become?”

“Whoa! You’re right. Why did they get so frail?”

“Your creatures were so strong because of the perfect harmony between body and spirit. But now the physical aspects are overflowing while the spiritual aspects are critically lacking. Their minds can no longer handle their bodies.”

This time it was a nutrient deficiency. They had plenty of carbohydrates, fats, proteins, and minerals, but they were wasting away from a lack of magic.

The simple solution to this problem was to supply more magic power.

There were creatures in my ecosystem, like the Syrup, that converted life force into magic power.

But resources themselves were now extremely scarce. If I killed tens of thousands of creatures to increase Syrup numbers, I’d simply reduce the total population by the same amount.

I wanted more living creatures, but my ecosystem itself was one giant ‘island.’ There was nowhere else for new life to come from.

So what method should I take? I could buy with points, or trade materials with Sesaisa, who was similarly short on biological resources. (Why is this bastard still short on biological resources after getting so much consulting from me?)

But the first option wasted points, and the second wouldn’t increase the world’s total mass even if trade was profitable. It would only achieve equilibrium.

That left only one option.

I opened the community and looked for people selling magic power.

The market prices didn’t matter. I sent this guy a message.

Habogul begged and pleaded, saying that handing over 300,000 points worth would rip out his very foundation. So I told him he could either receive consulting instead, or accept a 300,000-point non-aggression treaty valid for the entire Meteor Cartel.

So I grabbed 300,000 points worth of random magic stones from Habogul and threw him a 300,000-point dessert package bundled with 653 species of weeds that devoured every nutrient around them once planted, 16 species of absolutely vile candies specialized in hunting all types of creatures, regular Bisyakheets, and so on.

A few days later in absolute time, Habogul contacted me again.

When I crossed over to his world, his face truly looked like he was dying from resentment. But if that was how he felt, he should have politely declined when I first offered. Or at least secured better backing.

I did this same routine with seven other people besides Habogul. Before long, I had secured enough magic flows to completely fill my world.

Excellent. And thanks to four dedicated sales representatives, our Meteor Cartel’s lower ranks had grown by thirty new members.

“Hey, Angel. Is there any way to make a contract that prevents people from dropping out for a certain number of rounds?”

“That is not possible. The right to voluntarily withdraw is the most fundamental player right. It cannot be restricted by any contract.”

“I see. A little disappointing.”

“Just how much more vicious are you planning to become?”

As vicious as humans. I would become vicious in a very human way.

I had no idea what the lower members were saying. No one ever spoke directly to us. They were probably just thinking ‘this is bullshit, I got my points stolen’ and negotiating with their opponents in the next collision to pair up and drop out together.

Even so, it was fine. It was just something that had to exist in a game like this.

There were still plenty of people left. I would squeeze every last point and resource I could from the others, solidify my foundation, and then destroy them all.

But first, I needed to finish the ecosystem maintenance.